According to it Hastings has only been ranked higher than Davis for two years since 1990 ('99-'00). Even if Hastings were to overtake Davis in '09 I think it will be short lived. Also, even if Hastings were to be ranked higer than Davis in '09 (and maybe even for a few years after), with such a solid history of Davis being slightly higer than Hastings I think professionally Davis will hold more prestige for a for several more years.

With that said, both are great schools, and when it comes down to it I think the biggest difference between them is not the rankings but the programs they offer.

There are 4 years where Davis isn't listed, and therefore presumably wasn't in the top 50. This would mean Hastings outranked Davis 6 times, not 2 times.

I also believe (though I'm not certain) that Hastings generally has higher reputation ratings, and therefore more prestige, which is what really matters.

That said, again, Hastings is the school for the Bay area, and Davis is the school for Sacramento.

U.S. News Changes Placement Component of Rankings "to Reduce Gamesmanship by Law Schools"Robert Morse, Director of Data Research at U.S. News & World Report, reports that the placement component of the law school rankings (employment nine months after graduation (14% of the overall ranking) and employed at graduation (4%)) will be changed this year to mirror changes in the ABA's questionnaire "to reduce gamesmanship by law schools":

From Leiter

What the Employment Stats from the Last US News Rankings Would Have Looked Like Under the New ApproachA colleague sent me a revealing chart, showing what the employment stats for the top law schools would have looked like if U.S. News had already been employing the new policy of treating those unemployed but allegedly "not seeking employment" as part of the stats. UCLA's placement would have fallen from the reported 99.7% to 94.4%, while USC's stats would have fallen from 98.2% to 93.3%! Those were the biggest changes (5.3 and 4.9 percentage points, respectively), though Michigan and Vanderbilt were close: Michigan's employmente rate would have dropped from 99.7% to 95.8%, while Vanderbilt's would have gone from 99.0% to 95.5%. Only Cornell and Stanford would have been unaffected by this change, though the differences for Penn, Duke, Yale, and Columbia would all have been less than 1%. (Texas, for those curious, would have reported an employment rate 1.2% lower.)

To be sure, there are some graduates of law school who are genuinely not seeking employment--but it has surely not been in the numbers that some schools have been reporting.

U.S. News Changes Placement Component of Rankings "to Reduce Gamesmanship by Law Schools"Robert Morse, Director of Data Research at U.S. News & World Report, reports that the placement component of the law school rankings (employment nine months after graduation (14% of the overall ranking) and employed at graduation (4%)) will be changed this year to mirror changes in the ABA's questionnaire "to reduce gamesmanship by law schools":

From Leiter

What the Employment Stats from the Last US News Rankings Would Have Looked Like Under the New ApproachA colleague sent me a revealing chart, showing what the employment stats for the top law schools would have looked like if U.S. News had already been employing the new policy of treating those unemployed but allegedly "not seeking employment" as part of the stats. UCLA's placement would have fallen from the reported 99.7% to 94.4%, while USC's stats would have fallen from 98.2% to 93.3%! Those were the biggest changes (5.3 and 4.9 percentage points, respectively), though Michigan and Vanderbilt were close: Michigan's employmente rate would have dropped from 99.7% to 95.8%, while Vanderbilt's would have gone from 99.0% to 95.5%. Only Cornell and Stanford would have been unaffected by this change, though the differences for Penn, Duke, Yale, and Columbia would all have been less than 1%. (Texas, for those curious, would have reported an employment rate 1.2% lower.)

To be sure, there are some graduates of law school who are genuinely not seeking employment--but it has surely not been in the numbers that some schools have been reporting.

Apparently, Penn and Duke are gaming their placement stats in other ways.